Thursday, September 9, 2010

I'm having trouble keeping up with everyone now that school is crazy. I just finished my third week of nursing school( 61 weeks left!) This week I finally gave into just taking my clothes off. This is not as exciting as it sounds. The first week of nursing school in my health assessment class we learned how to assess the skin and mental status. When it was time to practice we partnered up and went into these little cubicle like rooms. If you were lucky you got a screen to cover the opening. My partner and I weren't that lucky. So we kept it convenient and assessed the skin on the head arms legs and feet. Easy access places. Week two for our clinical groups (by group I mean 90 people) we gave each other complete bed baths. Now when people asked the instructors how in depth this bathing lesson was going to go every single one of them shrugged and smiled and said " you'll have to figure it out." We have like 10 different instructors and they all laughed and said the exact same thing. My partner and I just washed each others arms and legs. I've done plenty of complete bed baths in my past and I did not feel like I was missing out on anything. Also we had curtains around the beds for privacy. However the beds were so close to each other that whenever you moved, your bum moved the curtain with you.After that we went into a classroom to get a crash course in pulses temps and resps. The teacher felt that in order to get an accurate apical pulse everyone had to lift their bras and shirts so the bell of the stethoscope would be in the right place. So the entire room and whoever was watching from the bench right outside the window of the room got a risque' glimpse of the underside of many boobs. Today in class we learned the respiratory assessment. When we partnered up I just gave up. Off went the shirt.We did however have a screen(a pretty worthless see through screen) this time, and a paper gown. The feeling was similar to playing strip poker sober, a little awkward and regretful. Not that I would know, but I imagine that's how it would be. Today was the day I gave up fighting for my privacy. Hairy legs, sexy bra, Christmas underwear, it is what it is, sorry partner.

"I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's....I loved it for its decency; for its faith in the wisdom, justice and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn't my own man anymore. I was my country's." John McCain